


You don't know how it feels (to be me)

by caranfindel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, POV Soulless Sam Winchester, Season/Series 06, Soulless Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caranfindel/pseuds/caranfindel
Summary: Soulless Sam tries to deal with his brother's feelings about, well, everything. Including his hair. Set in season 6, before "You Can't Handle the Truth."
Comments: 16
Kudos: 27





	You don't know how it feels (to be me)

**Author's Note:**

> An idea I had a long time ago, resuscitated by Jared's Walker haircut. The title is from "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It's a stupid case.

The manager of the county fairgrounds is a stooped, gnarled old man wearing one of those ball caps veterans wear sometimes. Gold embroidery on the dark blue hat proudly displays the name of his ship or submarine or whatever. Sam doesn't care about his ship or submarine or whatever. He doesn't care about this guy's service at all. Most days, old Blue Hat here got three meals a day and a warm, dry place to sleep in exchange for whatever he gave up. He got a pension when he was done fighting. Sam gets to scrounge for cheap food and sleep in crappy hotels when he's lucky enough to actually land someplace other than the back seat of the Impala. Sam's service to his country earned him a trip to Hell. Sam will get to stop fighting when he's dead. His only pension will be a pyre.

Sam doesn't even get to _sleep_ any more. 

(This should bother him. But the truth is, it doesn't.)

Blue Hat frowns at Sam's ID and snorts derisively. "You don't look like a Fed. You look like a goddamn hippie."

He rolls his eyes at the old man, even though he knows Dean hates it when he does that. It's something he didn't do Before, no matter how annoying or insipid the witness. Sam doesn't give a good goddamn what this guy thinks about his hair, but apparently his brother does. "He's been doing some undercover work," Dean says. "Sometimes you've got to look like a goddamn hippie to blend in."

Blue Hat sniffs his disapproval and ignores Sam for the rest of the interview, directing all of his answers to Dean. Which is fine. The old guy doesn't seem to have anything useful to add anyway. Sam leaves his brother to the pointless interview about the stupid case and wanders around the building, taking pictures of the unexplained runes that brought them here. He's bored. The sudden appearance of mysterious runes on the bland metal exterior of a county fairgrounds building feels witchy, and Sam really doesn't care about witches. Two measly deaths, quite possibly from natural causes, and now he's out here standing in cow shit. Or goat shit or pig shit. This entire day has been shit, literally and figuratively.

Dean joins him after a couple of minutes, apparently done with Blue Hat. "What do you think?" he asks.

Sam shrugs. "Too early to tell. If these runes are what Bobby thinks they are, they'll change under moonlight, but moonrise isn't until 9:05 pm."

"Jesus," Dean moans. "I can't stay awake that long. I've already gone almost two days. Let's go back to the motel and crash, and we'll hit this place again tonight." 

_Or not,_ Sam wants to say. _I think you jumped on this paper-thin excuse for a job just because the alternative was sitting in a motel room with me waiting for an actual case to come up,_ Sam wants to say. But neither of these are things he would have said Before, and Dean is so goddamn twitchy about Sam being different than Before.

As they turn back to the Impala, Dean glances at Sam with a slight smile. "Dude's not wrong, you know."

"What?"

"You do look like a goddamn hippie." Dean's hand twitches toward Sam, like he's going to smack him on the back of the head or ruffle his hair, but he pulls back without touching him. Because they don't do that now. Casual, good-natured, brotherly contact isn't a _thing_ now. Dean doesn't touch him unless there are injuries involved.

(This is another thing that should bother Sam. It would have, Before.)

. . .

Dean hangs his suit in the closet, sets an alarm, and collapses on top of the covers. Sam stares at his own bed. The threat of spending hours pretending to be asleep makes his skin crawl. If Dean falls asleep quickly enough, he can skip the whole charade. 

"Hey, I think I'm gonna shower first," he says.

Dean doesn't open his eyes. "Just don't wake me up when you get out."

In the bathroom, Sam turns on the water but doesn't get undressed. He stands at the mirror, staring at his too-long hair. Why has he bothered to hold onto it? He remembers caring about his hair. He remembers it being a small _fuck you_ to John, the one area in his life where he was able to cling to some autonomy. It's not that he's forgotten about that; he just doesn't give a shit any more.

And like Dean said, Blue Hat wasn't wrong. He does look like a hippie. The hair _is_ a hazard, and it _does_ clash with any kind of law enforcement disguise. Maybe it's time to do something about it. He has time to kill anyway, while Dean sleeps.

(Sam should care that he doesn't need to sleep any more. Dean would definitely care, if he found out. Dean cares _so much_ about any aspect of Sam that is less normal than he thinks it ought to be. Even if it's something that makes him a better hunter. Dean didn't appreciate it when Sam could exorcise demons without killing the host, and Dean wouldn't appreciate that Sam can get so much done when he's not sleeping. He could never understand why this version of Sam is so much better than the way he was Before. It's a shame Dean hasn't discovered the option of Not Caring.)

(Sometimes Sam wonders if getting back with Dean is worth the trouble.)

(And that should bother him too.) 

Sam shuts off the shower and pulls out his phone. He needs to find a barber shop in walking distance. Dean will get all pissy if he wakes up and the car is gone; less so if only Sam is missing. Luckily, there's a shop that might still be open. It's one of those ridiculous sports-themed places that presumes men are fussy toddlers who need to be distracted from the ignominy of a hair cut. At least they tend to be staffed by women, and those women tend to be prettier than average. With any luck, he can kill two birds with one stone.

When he opens the bathroom door, Dean is either asleep, or pretending to be. Sam scrawls _couldn't sleep, back soon_ on the motel notepad and closes the door behind him as silently as possible.

(He misses his car. He didn't have an emotional attachment to it, like Dean and the Impala, but it was convenient and it suited him.)

(He doesn't actually have an emotional attachment to _anything._ That should bother him.)

. . .

Two stylists, both predictably prettier than average, look up when he walks in. The redhead says "sorry, sir, we're just about to close up," and continues sweeping up hair trimmings. But the brunette looks him up and down and smiles. And Sam's partial to brunettes anyway. 

He gives her a once-over in return and smiles back. "Do you have time for just a quick cut? I'd be _eternally_ grateful." 

She stares at him for a minute, appraising. "Well, how could I turn down an offer of eternal gratefulness?" she says with a wink. She turns to the redhead. "Why don't you go on home. I've got this."

The redhead dumps her clippings into a trash can. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. You mind locking the door behind you? I don't want any more last-minute customers walking in."

The redhead raises her eyebrows, but gathers her purse and jacket and makes her escape as Sam settles into the brunette's chair. 

"I'm Marianne," she says, as she starts to drape a cape over his shoulders. 

"I'm Sam. But listen. I get too hot under those capes. Would it be okay if we skip it? And I just take my shirt off so I don't get hair all over it?"

Marianne smiles like the cat who caught the canary. "Not a problem, sweetheart." 

Sam slips out of his dress shirt and drapes it over the empty chair next to him. Marianne watches him the whole time, eyes roving over the muscles exposed by his snug white undershirt. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. 

He sits back in the chair and Marianne stands behind him. Her chest brushes against his shoulders. "So," she asks, "what are we doing today?" 

"Shorter. Off my collar, above my ears."

She slips her fingers through his hair, measuring its length. "You sure? This length looks pretty good on you. Just needs to be cleaned up a bit."

"It's for a job. The long hair doesn't fly any more."

"Aw, that's a shame." Marianne's still running her fingers through his hair. "If you've got a lady in your life, I bet she'll miss it. A girl likes something to hold onto."

Well. The best lies are based on a kernel of truth. Sam looks into his lap and lets his smile go sad and soft. "That's kind of why I'm here. My girlfriend died and I thought I'd try to start over. New place, new job, new life. But yeah, that's always been one of my favorite things. A girl grabbing my hair in the heat of the moment. I should have tried to find someone to do that one more time before I had to cut it off." 

Marianne leans forward, pressing her breasts harder against him. When he looks up, she meets his eyes in the mirror, then flicks a glance toward a door marked _Employees Only._ "You know," she says, "that could probably be arranged."

Seriously. Fish in a goddamn barrel. 

. . .

Dean's awake when Sam gets back to the motel room, but he doesn't look up from the laptop. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I guess I napped a little in the car on the way down here," Sam lies. "And then, you know, a lot of caffeine this morning."

"Whatever. I'm not the sleep police. I hope you brought food, cause I could —" Dean looks at Sam and stops mid-sentence, mouth still open. "You cut your hair?"

"Yeah."

_"Why?"_

"What do you mean, _why?_ Like old what's-his-face said, I looked like a hippie, not an FBI agent. And you've been telling me to cut it for years."

"Yeah, I have. I've been saying that for years and you've been ignoring me for years. Now some random witness calls you a hippie and you go running to Supercuts?"

Sam sighs. Dean may not be the sleep police, but he's awfully eager to step in as the hair police, enforcing his own set of laws about Sam's hair. "Why does it matter? _You_ wanted me to cut it. _Everyone_ wanted me to cut it. And I cut it. Can we move on now?"

It's a statement almost guaranteed to make Dean bow up in anger, but instead, he deflates. "It's just… nothing. Fine. _Moving on."_ He closes the laptop and pulls his keys out of his coat pocket. "We've still got an hour or so before moonrise. I'm gonna go run through McDonald's. You want a chicken sandwich, or is that something else you're not interested in any more?"

Jesus Christ. This is what passes for moving on. But Sam needs that shower now, and none of this is worth arguing about.

(Few things are any more. That seems like it should matter.)

"Yeah, that sounds great, thanks." 

By the time Dean gets back, the sandwich is cold and the ice in Sam's drink is mostly melted. He pretends to enjoy it anyway.

. . .

Their drive back to the fairgrounds is quiet. Dean occasionally steals an unhappy glance at Sam's hair, but doesn't say anything. Sam ignores it. 

They pull into the parking lot in front of the marked building. Without even getting out of the car, they can see that the runes have changed. The broad strokes are softly luminescent, glowing a pale blue in the moonlight. 

"Okay, so that answers that question," Sam says. Thank God. Now they can leave without wandering around the grounds, soaking up the barnyard smell again. Wrap this up and start working on something more important. But Dean gets out of the car and looks at Sam expectantly. Well, crap. Sam dutifully follows him closer to the building and tries to think of how he would have felt about this development Before.

"Cool," he says. Dean narrows his eyes at him. "I mean, cool that our theory was right. Not, you know, cool that someone is using this kind of spellwork to make sure their pig wins a blue ribbon at the fair. That part's… pretty awful." But Dean's still looking at him funny, so he probably overcorrected on that one. It's just hard, any more.

Dean rubs the back of his neck as he examines the glowing runes. "If that's all they're doing, more power to them. I couldn't care less. But we need to make sure that's all they're doing. I mean, people died, Sam. We need to figure out if this is why." He pulls out his phone. "Gonna take some pictures to send Bobby." There's no reason to remind him they already have pictures. If Dean thinks additional pictures are more effective and efficient than "just like this, but glowing blue," that's up to him. Sam will most likely solve the damn case later tonight anyway, while Dean sleeps.

And he almost does. Dean knocks back a couple of glasses of whiskey when they get back to the motel, and falls asleep pretty soon after that. Sam doesn't bother to feign sleep — Dean doesn't seem to care, right now, whether his brother gets any sleep or not. But when Sam realizes his own photos missed a crucial corner of the building, he opens his brother's phone and finds his last text to Bobby. There's only one picture, and it's not glowing runes. It's _him._ Just a dark, slightly blurry picture of Sam, obviously taken earlier that night at the fairgrounds. And a text conversation.

_See, I told you, it's short. I don't know what's going on. I swear he's just different._

_Yeah, I get it. It's different. He's different. But what'd you expect? Of course he's not the same as he was. Hell changed him._

_It didn't change me this much._

_His Hell wasn't the same as yours. I know it didn't last very long, but remember, he was in the cage with the devil. We don't know what happened to him in there. Give him some time._

Well. Fuck. Dean's talking about him behind his back. Dean doesn't trust him. Dean thinks, once again, that something is wrong with him. 

(That would have hurt, Before. Now it's just an annoyance. A distraction. Something to be dealt with.)

Yes, Hell changed him. Hell burned away all the crap, all the useless _feelings,_ the guilt and shame and fear of failure. Hell purified him. Hell carved out the weakness and left nothing but pure, strong hunter. Dean, of all people, should appreciate the result. But Dean does not, and now Sam has to cater to his tiresome attachment to everything Sam was Before.

Fine. He can make that work.

Sam quietly puts Dean's phone back on the nightstand. He strips down to boxers and his t-shirt, sets an alarm, and crawls into bed. Pretending to sleep is tedious, but a couple of hours of boredom right now might spare him weeks of Dean's moodiness about him being _different._

(As if Hell could leave you untouched. As if anyone in their right mind would expect that. As if Dean himself didn't know this first hand, for fuck's sake.)

. . .

Sam spends the next day focusing on acting the way he did Before. When his alarm goes off he stretches, yawns, and pretends he had a good night's sleep. He goes for a run, brings back coffee, showers quickly, and rolls his eyes when Dean makes a crack about him being able to spend less time in the shower now. At breakfast, he smiles at the (cute, definitely worth a bang) waitress, but doesn't flirt or even check her out as she walks away. He's figured out that Dean wants Sam to _want_ to get laid (but not _too_ much; he's definitely not supposed to want it as much as Dean wants it) but for some reason doesn't want him to actually get lucky. And he definitely would have gotten lucky. He spends the day looking empathetic, acting like this whole thing hasn't been a colossal waste of time. Like he cares about everything. About _anything._

(God, it's exhausting.)

It turns out the deaths probably don't have anything to do with the witch at all. They return to the fairgrounds one last time, where Sam plants hex bags and paints runes on the corners of the building that will block the witch's simple spells - not that he cares whether the witch achieves anything or not, just on principle. His own runes are small and subtle enough that this novice witch (they must be a novice; no one with any experience would be naive enough to make their work so noticeable) won't even know they're in place. And if the witch escalates, well, that's not exactly Sam's problem.

When he's finished, he wipes his hands on his jeans and says "We should get Chinese for dinner. When's the last time you ate a vegetable?" Because monitoring everyone's vegetable intake is something he did Before.

They're finishing Chinese takeout in their motel room (beef with broccoli for Dean, eggplant in garlic sauce for Sam, because occasional bouts of vegetarianism were also a thing he did Before) when he catches Dean looking at his hair, very clearly wanting to say something. 

So. It's go time. 

Sam tries to make his eyes big and sad. The puppy dog look, Dean always called it. It was never intentional Before, but now he has to work at it. "Listen," he says. "I owe you an apology. I haven't been telling you the whole truth."

"No shit," Dean says. He's trying to sound nonchalant, but his body language screams that he's bracing for something. "So, spill it. What's your big confession?"

(That I don't care about any of this. This piddly little case. My hair. _You._ Nothing. And you can't imagine, Dean, you cannot even begin to imagine the incredible freedom of _not caring._ I wish you could, but you just can't.)

No, he can't say any of that. But the best lies are built on a kernel of truth. 

Sam takes a deep, anxious breath and looks at Dean. No, wait. Look away. "You know, I told you I don't remember Hell. And I really don't. Not consciously, anyway. But when we were fighting those demons a couple of weeks ago, one of them grabbed me by the hair, and I felt something… it was a sense memory, I guess. It felt like Hell, for some reason. Like it was something that happened to me in Hell, someone grabbing my hair and pulling my head back and getting ready to cut my throat or… whatever." 

He doesn't have to elaborate on _whatever._ Dean knows the _whatevers_ of Hell better than anyone. He's probably dealing with a little sense memory of his own right now, of clutching someone's hair and pulling their head back in preparation for _whatever._ And now Sam does look at his brother, who is staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"Ever since then," Sam continues, "I just feel like I've been on the verge of remembering something. Something I don't want to remember. And I'm tired of worrying that I'm gonna have a Hell flashback every time I wash my hair."

Dean looks like he's going to vomit. Perfect.

"I'm sorry," Sam says. "It threw me, and I just didn't want to talk about it. But I shouldn't have kept it from you." 

For a second, he's sure he has gone too far. Dean is going to say _what's this bullshit, Sam, you would never apologize for something like that, so tell me what's really going on._ But he doesn't. He stares at Sam for a minute, then looks away and wipes a hand down his face.

"Yeah, okay. Okay. You, ah. You good now? Is it working?"

Sam shrugs. "Hard to say. It hasn't been very long. But yeah, I feel a little more… stable, I guess."

And then it's time to go for the kill. 

Sam gives him the sad smile. (He never used to think of it as a sad smile; never used to think of it as anything at all. It was just what his face did. Every expression requires so much thought now.) "Listen. I know things are weird. I know I'm weird. Different. I know it's hard for you. If this is all more than you want to deal with right now, I understand."

Dean frowns. "What are you saying?"

"Just, I can go back with Samuel and his crew if you don't want to do this any more. You and me, I mean. No hard feelings, I promise."

Dean's face crumples. "What? No, fuck, no, Sam. I don't. You and me, we're good. I'm just getting used to things. That's all."

"Okay." Sam gives his best approximation of a grateful smile.

"So. Uh." Dean looks around the room nervously, like he's waiting for the other shoe to fall, then stands. "I think I'm gonna go get a drink. You wanna come with, or…"

Even if Sam believed Dean really wanted him to come along — and he doesn't; this is obviously Dean's way of retreating from a situation he doesn't want to think about — pretending to sleep when Dean's gone is one of the easier ways of making it look like he actually does sleep sometimes. "No. I'm beat," he says. "I think I'll just go to bed." 

"Okay. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." Dean takes his keys out of his pocket and anxiously tosses them in his hand. When he finally does turn to Sam, he looks at his hair, not his eyes. "Hey, you know, it does. It does look good on you."

Sam ducks his head shyly, like someone who's not used to praise. Who doesn't think he deserves it. "Thanks." When he looks up, Dean is already halfway out the door, putting as much space between himself and his little brother's hellscape as possible.

(Seriously. Fish in a fucking barrel.)


End file.
